“Exquisite, or torment?” Nyx gasped, and Azaiah’s smile broadened.
“Both, beloved.” He let his hair fall over one shoulder, his expression almost coy. “Of course.”
* * *
Azaiah had dreamt of this for so long that part of him was sure it wasn’t real. Feared that he would wake up, and Astra would have sent this dream to him, a kind attempt at something Azaiah wanted and couldn’t have. But Azaiah didn’t sleep and therefore did not dream, and all his desires had been feverish imaginings that never included Nyxright here,splayed on his back, panting, and eager for him.
“Ah, my love, I have missed you,” Azaiah murmured, kissing the scars on Nyx’s broad chest, lingering over the mark of the flower that denoted the forging of their bond. “I know I was with you when I was… not myself. I am sorry for that. I don’t recall it, not really, but I am sure it was not… what you wanted of me.”
“It was you, and I wanted you so much I didn’t care. Fuck me, please,” Nyx begged, and oh, what a beautiful man he was, desperate and aching, flayed open as much as any of the poor targets who’d suffered under his knife.
Azaiah pressed his face to Nyx’s neck, inhaling. “We have been harsh to each other in the past. Me as my dark mirror, and you as yours.”
“That wasn’t— I don’t want to think about it, being him. Glaive. And I— There were people that I would, sometimes—”
“Shh,” Azaiah murmured. “I know. And I think… we would not be here if you hadn’t remembered your compassion. And your Red, your Ranger—he helped you find it again. I am not angry that you were with him, my soldier. I am glad it brought you pleasure, perhaps, for a time.”
“It— Nothing brought me anything,” Nyx gasped, staring wildly at Azaiah, his cock still hard, his breath coming too fast. “It was never… this. I’ve never felt like this, and I don’t want to feel this way, not with anyone else. Only you, forever.”
“And you will,” Azaiah said, running two fingers up and down Nyx’s hard cock.
“But I wasn’t,” Nyx whispered. He looked away, gaze shuttering. “That’s why I want you to fuck me. I need to beyours.”
“You are. Who else’s have you been, my soldier? You have been mine since I sat with you in a tavern in a city that no one now remembers, playing a game that has been forgotten along with it.” Azaiah placed his fingers beneath Nyx’s chin, bringing his focus back. “I have much to regret, too, Nyx. That I let myself drown in my own sadness, my own grief—I, who have seen it so often on the faces of others. You tried to tell me when we first met, yes?”
“I— It’s me that chose— Please,” Nyx moaned, his head tossing. “I just want to forget all of it. The things I’ve done, the—choices I made, the pain I brought you—”
“You are not here to do penance for the life you lived, my soldier. I wanted you as you were when I beheld you in that tavern, grieving a man who you thought you weren’t good enough for, a man who thought the same of you. I wanted you in that clearing, when you held the crossbow and a man’s life in your hands. I wanted you in all the moments between. I want you in the same way I carry souls across the river—without judgment for the life you lived before.”
“Azaiah,” Nyx wept, grabbing at him. “I am still afraid that I’ll blink and it’ll be your other smiling at me, that this will be punishment for the things I did as Glaive. As—as a butcher. The pleasure I took in feeling something, even if it was only satisfaction in doing my job. I hate what I became. I hate that I gave up a life at your side, for—for nothing.”
“Shh, my love, you didn’t do it for nothing.” Azaiah thought of Nadia and her daughter. The girl Elena, who had the same eyes. The little boy who had come back as a general and founded a country with his soldiers, refusing to bow before wealthy nobles just as Nyx once refused to bow before Lamont. All these things he would show Nyx, tell him, later.
“It didn’t matter. They all died,” Nyx whispered, trembling.
“Everyone dies, my dearest love. Even we will cross the river in time. You must put this behind you—what you did as my sibling’s sword, what you did as Death’s glaive. Come back to me. Be mine.”
“What if I can’t,” Nyx asked, putting an arm over his eyes. “Ah, all I want is this, you, and I can’t… Why can’t I stop this?”
Azaiah gently drew his fingers over the flower. “Would you like me to help you?”
Nyx dropped his arm and stared at him, eyes fever-bright and tearful. “Yes. Can you?”
“I can. You will feel no pain, here in our house. But I can make you feel… something. Let me have you, my soldier. Be only mine, and I will be only yours, and neither of us will lose each other, not again.”
“Yes,” Nyx whispered. “Yes.”
Azaiah nodded. “They call me the Lord of Storms. It isn’t true, not really. I am a herald, perhaps, though I suppose it’s not as dramatic a title.”
“Oh, no,” Nyx whispered, and surprisingly, trembled a smile at him. “You’re going to talk me out of this mood, is that it?”
“No, no.” Azaiah laughed and kissed him. “I will take it from you, the last of who you were. Who I was, when I was my other. It won’t hurt, but you will feel it nonetheless.” He concentrated, and arcs of lightning shot from his fingers, sparking over Nyx’s skin.
Nyx gasped and arched beneath him. “Fuck, Azaiah—”
“Yes, that’s it,” Azaiah urged, drawing the lightning down so that it sparked and teased over Nyx’s cock. “How does it feel?”
“Like it should—hurt, but it doesn’t,” Nyx said after a moment. “How is that… How?”
